Manufacture of metallurgical vessels.



AUGUSTIN lLEON JEAN QUENEAU, OF SOUTH BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVA- NliA, ASSIGNOR TO THE NEW JERSEY ZINC COMPANY, OF NEWARK,

NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OE NEW JERSEY.

WiMNUFAtTUIRHE ll WETALLUHGBNL WESSEIL$= SJPEUJEFIGATION forming part of Letters Patent lilo. 789,451, dated May 9, 1905. Application filed may 21, 1904. Serial No. 299,138.

To ay whom it may concern: v

Be it known that it, Auous'rm LEoN JEAN QUENEAU, a citizen of ing at South Bethlehem, county of Northampton, State of Pennsylvania, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Man ufacture of Metallurgical Vessels; and I do hereby declare the following to be afull, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to the manufacture of composite metallurgical vessels, chiefly designed for use in the metallurgy of zinc.

in the metallurgy of zinc as carried out in the reducing-furnace it is found necessary to limit the amount of iron, manganese, garnet, fluor-spar, fusible silicates, or the like that may be present in the charge, so that the resultant slag shall contain buta relatively small quantity of these injurious elements. lit present in large quantity, it is found that the acid Walls and bottoms of the retorts are soon destroyed, and the retorts are rendered useless and have to be replaced by others. In view of this limitation upon the character or composition of the charge and the corrosive action to which the retorts are exposed when the slag is too highly basic it is impracticable to reduce in said retorts many kinds of zinkiferous ores containing notable percentages of bases, the attempt to use such ores, except in admixture with ores containing a relatively low percentage of such injurious elements, exposing the retorts to such deterioration as to prove financially prohibitory. In order to remedy this defect, it has been heretofore pro posed to coat the surface of'the retort with basic materi'al-such as dolomite, magnesia, and the like-and to unite said coating with the surface of the retort by means of a sintering agent, such as silicate of sodium, interposed between the wallof the retort and the otherwise non-adherent basic material. This proposal involves, first, the preliminary manufacture of the retort proper; second, thecoating of the retort with the silicate of soda; third, the coating of the retort with the basic the United States, residmaterial, and, fourth, the subsequent sintering operation. c

By the practice of my present invention I obtain a composite retort entirely adapted to the purpose desired and of the proper and predetermined Wall thickness in a single operation, the completed article having a main body portion of the usual tire-clay and sand mixture and having an outer surface of predetermined and appropriate thickness made up of a mixture of fire-clay and a basic material, the basic material taking the place of the customary sand, either wholly or in part, as required by the particular exigencies of use. The outer surface 'referred to, it will be understood, may be either the interior or the exterior of the retort, or .both, it. being borne in mind that these retorts are usually arranged in tiers in the furnace and that their exterior surfaces are sometimes subjected to the action of basic slag which may be dropped upon them from a broken or leaking retort above.

in carrying out myinvention it make the batch of material for the main body portion of the retort from a pugged mixture of fireclay and sand in the usual manner. In preparing the batch for the surface portion of the retort i take the same tire-clay and mix with it aninert or a basic material, preferably in granular forin-such as chromite, carborundum, or the like-said inert or basic ma terial taking the place of the sand in the proportion desired to correspond to the particular mixture ofores for which the retort is intended. In some instances the inertorbasic material may take the place of all of the sand which is employed in the usual batch, and iii" other instances it may be supplied in varying proportions in conjunction with a correspondingly-less proportion of sand. The mixture of refractory fire-clay and inert or basic material is-then pugged in a pug-mill t0 the desired plasticity. it is then stamped in the hammering-machine. After \the hammering operation it is superimposed upon the preliminarily-stamped clay-and-sand mixture intended for the main body portion of the retort,

press, so that at the termination of the opera tion the retort will be produced as a vessel having a main body portion composed of a mixture of refractory clay and sand and outer surfaces composed of a mixture of refractory fire-clay and inert or basic material, in which sand may or may not be present to a greater or less extent, dependent upon the particular character of the ores to be treated. nipulations necessary to the completion of the vessel do not differ from the ordinary practice.

thickness of the surfacing of basic or inert material may be varied at difierent points, if desired, or may be restricted to such parts of the retort as require it. For instance, it will usually be unnecessary to providea surfacing of basic or inert material for the outer bottom of the retort, and in some instances it may be omitted from the entire exterior surface, although, as l have stated above, i prefer to use it upon the outer and inner sides of the retort for the reasons given. it is also within the scope of my invention to provide an intermediate body of material between the main body portion of the retort and the outer surface portion, which intermediate portion may contain a less proportion of basic or inert material than the outer portions, the purpose of this arrangementbeing to obviate too abrupta transition from the basic material of the outer portions to the clay-and-sand mixture of the main body portion.

in some instances ll employ as the inert material com minuted graphite, mixed either with fire-clay alone or with fire-clay and sand. As is well known, however, graphite burns when exposed to an oxidizing atmosphere at high temperatures. it is therefore not feasible to leave the outer surface of a graphite-coated retort unprotected for the reason that the graphite in burning out would leave the remainder of the coating porous, which would be of course undesirable. For this reason when 1 coat the main body portion of a retort with a mixture containing graphite l further cover the said graphite coating with an additional thin coating of clay and sand, which I find is an efficient protector against the burning, out of the graphite. it will be under- The remaining ma it will of course be understood that the stood that this thin coating of a mixture of recast clay and sand may be applied either to the exterior or interior of the retort or to both exterior and interior, according to whether the graphite mixture itself is applied to the exterior or interior of the retort, or both.

Although i have described my invention as particularly adapted to the manufacture of retorts for the treatment of zinc ores, it will be understood that generally to the manufacture of other metallurgical vessels, such as crucibles or the like, intended for use in the metallurgy of steel and other metals and wherein it is desirable to provide a basic or inert outer surface.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is Y l. The herein-described method of making metallurgical vessels, which consists in subplying a press-mold with a hammered wa made up of contiguous hammered wads, one consisting of fire-clay and sand corresponding to the main body portion of the proposed metallurgical vessel, and the other consisting of mixture of lire-clay and a material inert to a fused base, and then compressing the members of the composite wad into intimate and homogeneous contact to form the completed vessel; substantially as described.

2. The herein-described method of making metallurgical vessels, which consists in supplying a press-mold with a hammered wad made up of contiguous hammered wads, one consisting of lire-clay and sand corresponding to the main body portion of the proposed metallurgical vessel, and the other consisting of a mixture of fire-clay and a basic material, and then compressing themembers of the composite 'wad into intimate and homogeneous contact to form the completed vessel; substantially as described.

3. The herein-described method of making metallurgical vessels, which consists in supplying a press-mold with a hammered wad made up of contiguous hammered wads of different composition. and then compressing the constituent wads into intimate and homogenouscontact to form the completed vessel; substantially as described.

in testimony whereof ll affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

AUGUSTI N LEON JEAN Witnesses: I J. A. VAN MA'rnR, /V. W. Dessert.

QUENEAU.

it is likewise applicable 

